The invention relates to a personal information management system for registering personal information into an IC card with a built in integrated circuit and for using such information more particularly, the present invention relates to a personal information management system for a card owner to use personal information while managing the registration and disclosure of such information.
Hitherto, personal information for use in a reservation system of a public transport, a hotel, or the like and a service system such as a membership club or the like in a department store is obtained as necessary when a questionnaire or various application forms are written, when articles are purchased, when services are provided, or the like and is managed by each company. In association with the spread of magnetic cards, a service treating company issues a member card to a consumer and records personal information necessary to use services, for example, year, month, and day of the joining, an address, a name, an age, and the like onto the magnetic card by using an ID code such as a member number or the like. The service treating company obtains the necessary personal information by using the magnetic card when the services are used and can accurately get the personal information without difficulty at time of the use. Further, when services are used, the contents of the provide services and personal information, such as a size or the like regarding the article purchased, are recorded from a terminal device of the treating company to the magnetic card, thereby enabling the recorded personal information to be again used when the magnetic card is used next. Further, in recent years, IC cards, which have been standardized by banks and for terminal equipment such as ATM, CD, counter equipment, etc., from which money can be withdrawn with the IC card, have rapidly been put into practical use. The IC card that is issued by a bank has not only a bank using region according to the bank standard format, but also sufficient lending region in order to add an additional value by enabling the IC card to be used. Therefore, it is considered to use the lending region of the IC card for the recording of personal information. Since the memory capacity of the IC card is extremely larger than that of a conventional magnetic card, in addition to fundamental personal information such as address, name, and the like, specific personal information can be also recorded for a plurality of different systems. The use of the IC card as a data bank of personal information having high commonness can be expected. On the other hand, in service industries such as department stores, travelling companied, hotels, or the like, a service system using a computer, such as POS system, reservation system, or the like, has already been constructed. By providing a reader/writer function for the IC card in a terminal device, a system which manages and uses the personal information recorded in the IC card can be constructed.
However, in the conventional personal information management system using a magnetic card or an IC card, the treating company of services registers and manages all of the personal information. Therefore are the problems an that prevent the system from being sufficiently used. First, the service treating company has already expended a great amount of cost for acquisition and registration of personal information, which are executed when questionnaires and various application forms are sent, when goods are purchased, when services are provided, or the like. The costs rise with an increase in the amount of personal information. The personal information such as address, family make-up, and the like changes with the lapse of time. Unless a change notification or the like is received from the individual, freshness of the information once obtained cannot be maintained. The effort required to obtain such a change notification is large, and maintenance and management are troublesome. For the consumer, each time he receives different services, the same contents such as address, name, and the like have to be repetitively provided, i.e., many times. There is also information which cannot be known, such as birthdays of the consumer's family members, unless it is newly confirmed. Further, there is also information which the consumer prefers not to directly state or does not desire to be known. Therefore, the personal information is not sufficiently provided to the transaction, partner and there is also a possibility that the consumer will not receive expected services.